A Handful of Dust
by flutflutflyer
Summary: Air Temple Island is going to kill her. Even something as simple as bathing Meelo does nothing but bring back memories. She is stronger than this. So why can't she let him go?


A/N: Not even going to pretend this is remotely good. But I saw the clip yesterday [the one where Tenzin asks Lin to look after his children and Pema tells Lin to give Meelo a bath], and I couldn't _not_ write this. The initial conversation, the memory, I'm going to turn into something later. I find the Linzin-Pemzin dynamic so tragically heart-breaking. As always, rough and unedited.

The title is a reference to _The Wasteland_.

On a completely random side-note, I call that Equalists will attack Air Temple Island while Lin is there. _I call it_. It will happen. Just you wait for it.

* * *

"_What if you had your life to live over, Lin?" He looks away, the wind fanning his robes out behind him as though he were a spirit, the golden glow from the setting sun lighting a halo around him._

_Her voice is unnecessarily harsh, her fingers curled tightly around her arms. "What do you mean?"_

"_Would you choose your position again?" She can hear the pain wracking his body. "Or would you choose . . . love?"_

"_Give me ten years, Tenzin." The breath whispers away to the sky. "We should return to the festivities. Some might be wondering where the groom is on the most important night of his life."_

The memory shakes her.

Air Temple Island is going to kill her.

She isn't sure how yet, or why, but in its own way, it is going to kill her.

Babysitting the airbenders is an excellent start.

She knows that Pema is watching her as a mother elephant bear protecting her cubs from any and all danger, and she knows that the second she makes one wrong move, the pregnant woman will kick her from the island as certainly as the sun rising or the air being breathable or Tenzin not being hers.

Meelo squirms in her arms. Sighing, she metalbends the tub of water over and drops him inside. "Can you bathe yourself?" she interrogates sharply, her armour creaking slightly as she puts her hands on her hips and watches him.

"I don't want a bath!" the airbender cries out instead, loudly enough to cause her to wince, and he bends himself from the tub and attempts to run away. "I want dessert! Dessert!"

She shoots a strand of metal, wrapping it around his torso, and drags him back into the tub. If there's one thing she has to admire about Pema, it's the latter's ability to deal with three of these on a daily basis: She can't even deal with one for five minutes. Squatting by the tub, she strips him of his clothing in rapid succession—she feels that she is being too rough with such a delicate child, but she has nothing else in her—and hands him a bar of soap. "You can have dessert later. Lather yourself up. _Now_."

His face scrunches, and for a moment she thinks he's going to have a tantrum. That's the last thing she needs right now. Fortunately, her seismic sense picks up the form of a bat lemur careening wildly through the inner house, and it soars past the two of them, its wingtip missing her shoulder by a centimetre, and flies on, eliciting a never-ending stream of giggles from Meelo.

She would almost prefer the tantrum.

At last he starts to follow her directions, but not without throwing the soap at the wall, throwing the soap at her, attempting to _eat_ the soap, and successfully eating half the bar. She resorts to holding his skinny shoulders while he bathes himself, water splashing everywhere, a yellow tinge flooding the tub.

"How old _are_ you?" An innocent question. She's expecting as answer of three.

Meelo blinks up at her, his eyebrows unnaturally thick. "I'm five and a half."

Nothing surprises her anymore, and she nods curtly. "I see you inherited your brains from your mother's side of the family."

Once he's reasonably clean, she earthbends herself a chair from the ground and settles down to let him play about in the water. Perhaps this is why Pema is on the edge all the time: She's unable to take a breath without one of the children begging her for something, and with a fourth on the way, it's bound to get worse. Between her fingers, she rolls a cylinder of metal, musing on what it must be like knowing that your only role in life is to breed airbenders. Knowing that her husband doesn't love you, not the way he loved and perhaps loves another. Knowing that when he is on his deathbed, the last person he calls over won't be you but _her_.

What must it be like?

Another bat lemur dashes past, a moon peach in its mouth—does this happen often? Is it usually this chaotic, or do the animals sense danger?—but Meelo grabs it and stuffs it into the tub. "Bathtime!" he announces, dunking the creature in the water and shoving the fruit into his mouth. Briefly she considers rescuing the poor lemur, but it's futile. He's not her kid, after all, and if his mother wants him to grow up to be a psychotic animal torturer, that's Pema's problem, not hers.

_But what if he was yours?_

The thought strikes her with a sudden intensity, sinking its fangs into her mind and refusing to let go, its venom coursing through her veins.

_What if?_

She can't imagine raising three children, not let alone one. The eldest is quiet as least, but even the bookworm must have been this messy at one point. The other two are unbearable. A motor-mouth and an overcharged squirrel monkey with a tendency to fight amongst themselves over every little thing. Airbenders aren't her style, not these. _He_ was different. He was wise beyond his years, even as a child, serene, respectful, gentle, peaceful, just like to his father in every respect.

She doesn't understand how someone so similar to the former Avatar could father children like this.a Where did all the inanity come from?

Pema?

She can't blame _everything_ on Pema.

Perhaps it's the fact that Tenzin never truly fell in love with Pema. As a wife, yes. But not as a lover. Perhaps it's the constant absences brought on by work at the council, by the Equalist threat, and now by the raging war—the corruption in the council—the new Avatar needing his help. Perhaps the kids don't know their father beyond that he _is _their father.

That's not an excuse. She didn't know her father, either.

She still doesn't.

No, she muses as she helps Meelo from the tub, wishing her hands were somehow aware of where they need to be placed, accepting the reality that the twitching and writhing is no doubt her fault, she _couldn't_ have children like Pema. She would fail the world forever, but children she would not, could not have.

In the end, she supposes that a wind blowing over a mountain eventually erodes both, the mountain turning to dust, the wind choked, clogged, and dying.

Dust.

Nothing but dust, falling through her fingertips, scattered to the four corners of the world.

At least Meelo can dress himself to some extent. Helping him with his boots would break the heart of a weaker woman.

But she's never been weak. She is the metal that came from the pressure and pain, the coal transformed to diamond, the earth purified and strong. That is who she is.

If she had her life to live to live over, _would_ she make a different choice?

She can almost feel his arms around her waist, holding her, perhaps running his hand over the curve on her belly—

_No._

No.

She tastes the word.

No.

She wouldn't change her decision. The city needs her much more than she needs him.

But maybe, just maybe . . .

Maybe she'd be able to change his.


End file.
